Lucid Living: Book Review

The cover announces that Lucid Living is a book you can read in an hour that will turn your world inside out. It’s a bold claim and I can’t say it worked for me. But then, I’d already been turned inside out before reading it so Freke was preaching to the choir.

Lucid Living is short and sweet, and works as a great introduction to the mystical principle of no-mind or non-duality consciousness. No jargon, no philosophical obfuscation. Just simple truths you can test for yourself.

The basic idea is that life is like a dream, and the goal of the book is to wake you up within the dream of life so you can live lucidly. It’s similar to the practice of lucid dreaming where you become aware you are dreaming while asleep. Lucid dreaming gives you more control over what happens in the dream because you recognise you’re the one making everything happen.

Lucid living allows you to take a step back and not take everything so personally. Becoming aware of the simple truths demonstrated in this book can help awaken you to the joy of co-creation and the reality of your true identity.

It may take a little longer than an hour to attain full awakening and reading a book won’t help, but this book may prod you in the right direction. If you follow Freke’s arguments and try the experiments for yourself, you may find the light flickers briefly. It won’t work if you just read the words.

Lucid living takes practise.

Life is not what it seems and you are not who you think you are.

“When we assume we are just separate individuals we act in our limited self-interest, regardless of the suffering we may cause others. The illusion of separateness leads to selfishness and suffering.

But becoming conscious of the reality of oneness leads to the selfless desire to end all suffering and create universal wellbeing.

When we realise separateness is an illusion we understand that conflict is never between us and them, but always us against us. This realisation has huge implications.